A business object is a software model representing real-world elements of business transactions. For example, a business object may represent a business document such as a sales order, a purchase order, or an invoice. A business object may also represent master data objects such as a product, a business partner, or a piece of equipment. Particular ones of such master data objects (e.g., SALES_ORDER SO435539, ACME corporation) are represented by instances of their representing business object, or business object instances.
A business object may specify business logic and/or data having any suitable structure. A business platform provider (e.g., SAP AG®) may provide a software solution including many business objects for a particular business scenario. The business platform provider may design the structure of the business objects based on the requirements of the business scenario.
A customer deploying such a software solution might use pre-defined user interfaces to interact with the business objects. Often, however, a customer will want to customize these user interfaces based on the business needs of the customer. For example, a customer may wish to change a user interface associated with a SALES_ORDER business object by adding a “Sub-Product Identifier” field next to an existing “Product Identifier” field.
In order to maintain internal consistency of the software solution, this change requires modification of the user interface and of the SALES_ORDER business object. In particular, the SALES_ORDER business object is modified to include the extension field “Sub-Product Identifier”. Commonly-assigned co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/339,328, entitled “UI-Driven Binding Of Extension Fields To Business Objects”, describes systems for facilitating the above-described change. The contents of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/339,328 are incorporated herein by reference for all purposes.
A customer-added extension field is available for consumption by other elements within the software solution. These elements include, but are not limited to, other user interfaces, print forms, and service interfaces. However, a customer typically does not possess the advanced technical skill required to incorporate the extension field within these elements. In fact, the customer is typically unable to even identify elements which might be suited for consumption of the customer-added extension field.
Improved systems for utilizing added extension fields are desired.